GLANDERS. 



481 



affected animals that were found among them. Young horses 

 ' break up ' much more rapidly than old horses, and overworked or 

 underfed studs are invaded with much greater rapidity than those 

 well fed and properly worked. 



HISTORY.- — Glanders was known to the ancient Greeks and 

 Romans. For the first half of the nineteenth century, veterinary 

 surgeons as a rule considered that it could occur spontaneously, 

 an error that was chiefly due to the fact (then unknown to 

 scientific men) that many cases of the disease ran a long course, 

 without showing any outward symptoms ; and that outward 

 symptoms were often readily developed by predisposing influences. 

 All doubts respecting the specific nature of this disease were re- 

 moved by Loffler and Schiitz, who discovered the micro-organism 

 of glanders in 1882. The next great step in advance was the pre- 

 paration of mallein (p. 626) in 1891 by Kalning and Hellmann. 



STATISTICS. — Half a century ago, glanders was common all 

 over Great Britain and in the Army, from which it was eliminated 

 in 1891 by Dr. George Fleming, who was the Director of the 

 A.V.D. The mounted branches of the Service became again 

 infected, to a comparatively large extent, at the beginning of the 

 late South African war. The following table shows the prevalence 

 of glanders in the whole of England, and also in London, during 

 seven years. 



From this date the cases of glanders steadily decreased year by 

 year until, in 1913, there were only 504 cases reported in the 

 whole of England. 



As these recorded cases are practically restricted to those which 

 show clinical (outward) symptomSi the number of affected animals 

 probably exceeds 20,000. 



In Scotland, glanders is practically confined to Lanarkshire. The 



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